


afterglow

by DeHeerKonijn



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Elf Culture & Customs, Elf magic, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, POV Gimli, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-11 10:35:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19107937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeHeerKonijn/pseuds/DeHeerKonijn
Summary: A constellation of little white blooms dot the hillside around them. Gimli hadn’t noticed them when they first tumbled onto the grass, but now something about their dainty faces makes him huff an incredulous chuckle.A son of Durin, made husband on a bed of moonflowers!





	afterglow

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, everyone!
> 
> I've really been bitten by the elf-marriage bug lately, and as we were talking about marriage braids on twitter -- well, I wrote this at lunch today haha. My lore might be super off as a result (hence the SUPER ambiguous time/place), but I enjoyed myself thinking about little woodland magics Legolas might manifest, say, when he's really, really happy. :) 
> 
> As always, I am no writer but a humble pencil-pusher in this fandom land. Words are not my strong suit, tho I like to play with them sometimes! Not currently looking for crit.

  

 

Legolas collapses onto Gimli’s sticky chest, panting like they’re sprinting across the plains of Rohan all over again.

 

Kisses of sweat bead at the elf’s temples, makes the hair there dark and slick with proof of their exertion, but his eyes are sparkling with sated contentment. He swallows, attempting to rein in his rabbit-quick heartbeat. With a trembling hand he reaches up, trails long fingers through Gimli’s curls, tucks a twisting lock of auburn behind a pierced dwarven ear. Long limbs, elegant lines of an archer's body nested between Gimli's powerful thighs. He looks ethereal, Gimli thinks, like a creature made from starlight is gasping against him as they settle together into the honeyed afterglow. A heavy moon casts her halo around the golden hair that spills over Legolas' bare shoulders; he is glowing with his happiness, and Gimli is sure he has never seen anything more beautiful, that his heart has never felt so full. Absently, Gimli runs a thick knuckle up and down a fine-boned shoulder blade.

 

They’ll have to wait to have a proper Dwarven ceremony — if they live long enough to have one. But for now, under the watchful eyes of the night sky above them, Gimli Glóin’s son is wed to Legolas Thranduilion.

 

Gimli hums a comfortable sigh, and the rumble in his chest jostles the elf a bit. Legolas’ eyes were slipping into half-sleep, but the movement surprises him back to blinking wakefulness. He settles back in, nestles his cheek against the swell of Gimli’s left pectoral, and his clever fingers scratch gently at the ample chest hair. A sweet, unbelieving smile spreads across his face. Gimli knows the feeling. He can hardly believe it either.

 

A constellation of little white blooms dot the hillside around them. Gimli hadn’t noticed them when they first tumbled onto the grass, but now something about their dainty faces makes him huff an incredulous chuckle.

A son of Durin, made husband on a bed of moonflowers!

 

The laughter catches in Legolas as well, giddy and soft, though he couldn't possibly know the reason for it. Gimli bends himself, tilts Legolas’ chin upwards, and claims a slow, lingering pull of his lips.

  
  
  


 

They creep quietly back to camp the next morning, pad softly around the smoldering fires and sleeping men to their abandoned bedrolls long before anyone can notice they've been gone.

Eventually the camp stirs to life around them with the dawn, men and horses hustling and bustling about. Legolas falls to work right away, gathering up supplies, packing them away for the coming day’s journey. Gimli smokes his pipe and sees to the morning meal. When they catch each other’s gaze purely by chance, Gimli’s eyes crinkle at the corners and Legolas beams, picks up the tune of a passing starling, turns it into a cheery little working song. Gimli listens, heart still full to bursting with molten gold, but he turns his focus back to breakfast and does not lift his head again until Aragorn sits down beside him.

 

He and the ranger don’t speak at first. Aragorn lights his own pipe, takes a deep breath of cool morning air. By the crackling fire they sit side by side a while, existing in that comfortable, silent space shared by people who know the other well.

 

When the iron pan is sizzling with sausage grease, Gimli sees Aragorn watching him sidelong with a wry smile on his scruffy face. He raises an eyebrow in question, but Aragorn offers no explanation.

 

“What is it?” 

 

Aragorn still doesn’t answer, but keeps watching Gimli in that catlike way of his, like he’s got a secret he’s feeling very smug about. Probably a bad habit acquired from spending so much time among elves.

 

“Out with it, laddie,” Gimli grunts, out of fond confusion more than annoyance.  

 

Aragorn’s lips tighten with suppressed humor, and he takes a drag. When he exhales, his pale eyes follow the curl of smoke.

 

“Look,” Aragorn says, nodding out to where the horses are being saddled and laden. Gimli obliges.

 

Legolas is _different_. Gimli had thought his own tender disposition the reason why he saw a luminousness in the elf last night, but now as the sun climbs in the east he can clearly see that Legolas is positively _radiant_ with — something. Something in his bearing, his gait. His delicate beauty makes Gimli’s heart clench this morning more than ever before. He is tending to Arod, moving around the faithful beast, snout to mane to haunches, with an easy grace, a fluid and unbothered sway of his hips that, if it wasn’t apparent before, is obvious now. He floats through his chores, still singing sweetly between friendly elvish horse-chatter.

 

More obvious than that, though; wildflowers are blooming in his wake.

 

Little sprigs of purple larkspur and aster blossom to life as he braids simple plaits into Arod’s mane. Sunny coreopsis and pristine white daisies supervise Legolas as he inspects the animal’s joints and hooves. Attentive harebell and romantic mallow turn their blushing cheeks towards Legolas’ song, an eager audience. More and more appear with each pass and path Legolas treads, round and round the horse, and by the time he is done readying Arod for travel, the pair stand in the center of a lush garden that reaches right up to their knees.

 

“I was not aware Legolas knew any magic,” Gimli says more to himself than to Aragorn, a little breathless.

 

He knows some elves use magic, of course — it is elven spells that keep Lóthlorien safe, elven words of healing that ensured young Frodo arrived in Rivendell alive. Gimli even knows that Legolas’ own father uses enchantments to disguise painful scars from a past trauma (though he isn’t supposed to know it). He knows of elven magic. But Legolas is a warrior, has never before revealed aptitude of any sort, nor even interest for practice of the more mystic skills that elves are attuned to. Surely speaking to ancient trees is another matter entirely from conjuring a meadow at the height of summer up out of the earth on a whim?

 

“I do not believe he does,” Aragorn agrees, “But then again, his kind are closest to those who sang the world into creation.”

 

They watch Legolas go about his business with this and that, trailing meadowsweet behind him all the way to the southern end of the encampment at a hailing from some Rohirrim. Aragorn’s sly grin returns, then.

 

“Perhaps he does not realize. Perhaps he cannot help himself but sing-- for the joy of being wed.”

 

Gimli chokes on his own pipe smoke and has to heave a few coughs from himself to set his lungs to rights. His cheeks don’t heat, but he turns to Aragorn in stunned surprise, thumping his own chest. The rightful heir is smiling kindly at him now, all teasing replaced with warmth of friendship.

Gimli hastily clears his throat. After watching Legolas together, he supposes he shouldn't bother asking Aragorn how he can tell. Even if the man hadn’t grown up among elves, Gimli can see now that every change in Legolas is unmistakable, not merely a trick played by his own love-light.

 

A wisp of a delicate, laughing voice curls its way back to them on a breeze.

 

“I expect the whole company will know by nightfall, so prepare yourself for some good-natured prying,” Aragorn says, as if reading his mind. He looks amused again, tapping out his pipe, but Gimli doesn't want him to misunderstand.

 

“We weren’t strictly intending to keep it a secret, just— there’s a war on, and all,” Gimli says gruffly.

 

Aragorn clasps his shoulder tight.

 

“Then perhaps that is even more reason why the earth should answer his song in kind,” he says. “Congratulations, my friend.”

 

 

Later, Arod is a proud ship that bears them both through waves of tall grass, leaving a slipstream of painter’s colors behind as they travel through the scarred and tired land. Gimli would worry about the potential threat of leaving a trail for enemies, but he finds he can’t quite bring himself to care when he looks upon Legolas’ flushed expression of happiness, feels the zinging warmth beneath his skin. So he rests his head between strong shoulders, gives the narrow waist a tight squeeze. He relishes the life in the vibration of song bounding around in his chest, bubbling out into the cool air where it conjures hopeful new growth in all who hear it.

 

After that first thrilling day-- the day after the happiest night of their shared lives-- Legolas’ flowers abate somewhat, but never fully stop appearing where there is love to be had.

 

Modest saxifrage and sweet clover sway in the salty air at Pelargir, summoned as Gimli summons Legolas back from his gull flight with a press of gentle palms on pale, cold cheeks.

 

At the march upon the Black Gate, rebellious flax flowers appear in the sand of the Ephel Dúath with the reassuring squeeze of a hand, dropped quickly to heft an axe.

 

When the war is hard-won and Barad-dûr has fallen, Gimli catches an armful of elf and they spin to the ground on the battlefield, bloody and filthy, kissing with wild triumph and desperate relief in equal measure on a bed of goldenrod.

 

In the times of peace that follow, Gimli finds he is more likely to notice them suddenly, in places bare only moments before— bluebells and enemion standing tall and beautiful as if they’d always been there between cracks of stone steps of Minas Tirith, always have been peeking up through floorboards on the ramparts of a healing city.

 

 

Years later still— when Gimli teaches Legolas the secret Khuzdul words that make up dwarrow vows, when he weaves precious cuts of amethyst into Legolas’ new braid— curling vines of clematis with lush purple flowers grow underground in Aglarond for the first time in history.


End file.
